Committee seeks names for Annapolis marker honoring March on Washington

A committee building a new memorial in Annapolis has extended the deadline for names of those who took part in the August 1963 March on Washington, where the Rev. Martin Luther King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

The committee had initially set a deadline of May 19, but has extended it to May 31.

The memorial is scheduled to be unveiled in Whitmore Park in Annapolis, where a bus departed for the march, on Aug. 28 — the 50th anniversary of the march. It is being paid for by donations to the committee.

With more than 200 names in from around the country and as many as 500 expected, the cost is expected to be $50,000, said Carl O. Snowden, chairman of the nonprofit Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Committee. The organization previously built a memorial for King on the campus of Anne Arundel Community College and a memorial garden for Coretta Scott King at the Edgewater campus of Sojourner Douglass College.

The purpose of the new marker is to honor the more than 250,000 "foot soldiers" in the peaceful civil rights march with representative names, Snowden said. Among them are names of famous people such as author James Baldwin and Rosa Parks, but also ordinary Americans, he said. So far, $30,000 has been raised, he said.

Individuals may submit names via email to carl_snowden@hotmail.com. For more information, go to Igg.me/at/mlk-annapolis.